Notes

Lucy Petway Holcombe (died 1899) was the daughter of Beverly
Lafayette Holcombe. She married Francis Wilkinson Pickens,
governor of South Carolina between 1860 and 1862. A regiment of
South Carolina troops was named the Holcombe Legion in her
honor, and her face was on the Confederate $100 note.
(Biographies / Portraits of Early Regents and Vice Regents
http://www.mountvernon.org/library/Biographies/Pickens.html)

"She was the only woman on Civil War Confederate money, a
Southern belle of head-turning beauty and, behind the scenes, a
skillful political operator.
So when Vernon Burton heard that Lucy Holcombe Pickens –
daughter of Texas, wife of South Carolina's powerful governor,
rumored lover of a Russian czar – might have secretly penned a
romantic novel published under a man's name, he was naturally
interested.
But it took the University of Illinois history and sociology
Professor 15 years of off-and-on detective work before he could
find a copy of the book. Now, thanks to Burton and his wife
Georganne "The Free Flag of Cuba" and Lucy Pickens are getting a
modern audience.
"My guess is it's going to do better now than it did then
because of the historical value that it has now," said Burton,
one of whose specialties is Southern history.
Burton first heard about "The Free Flag of Cuba" in researching
his Pulitzer Prize-nominated book "In My Father's House Are Many
Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina."
"There were rumors that she had written this novel," he said.
"But I could never find it. "I wanted to see what she said
because I'd heard so much about her."
"To write a novel would have backed up my theory that this was a
disciplined, political woman," he added.
Especially a novel with a decidedly political message. The book
is loose a fictionalization, and a defense, of the Lopez
"filibuster" of Cuba. At the time, "filibustering" didn't mean
long-winded senators speaking, but rather mercenary American
military expeditions in Latin countries.
Ostensibly, the goal was to free the countries to emulate the
American republic. In practice, it served to line some
participants' pockets and, from the perspective of the South,
had potential to add slave states to the Union.
When the Lopez expedition was quashed in 1851, many of its
participants were executed by Spanish authorities, including the
love of Lucy Holcombe's life, William Crittenden.
Her book is partly autobiographical. But the Burtons said it
also serves a number of other purposes.
Its idyllic portrayal of slavery, for example, is a refutation
of the picture in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the classic anti-slavery
book of the time. Its stance on federal authority – President
Millard Filmore denounced filibustering – presages Southern
arguments for the Civil War.
Over the years, as Burton searched, some libraries and other
repositories claimed to have the lost book. But all the leads
turned out to be dead ends.
"I would go and they would say they would have a copy and it
would be a part of it," said Burton, who also found a
handwritten fragment at Duke University.
The search was further complicated because the book's title was
listed differently by different sources, as was the pseudonym
Pickens used to write it, H.M. Hardimann.
Finally, UI librarian Carol Penka located the full text on a
roll of microfilm made to preserve obscure 19th Century novels.
(As far as the Burtons can tell, only one paper original, found
later at the New York Historical Society, exists.)
Burton and his wife, who taught history and English, had been
looking for a project to do together and went to work editing
and annotating the novel for new publication.
Their introduction, which covers nearly a quarter of the book,
is a mini history of, among other things, the filibuster
movement, the Lopez expedition, the pre-Civil War South and, of
course, Lucy Pickens.
Lucy married the rich, powerful and much older Francis Pickens
(he was 53, she not quite 26) after her Crittenden's death in
Cuba. Her book may have been, in part, an exercise to work
through her loss.
Pickens, a former congressman, was dispatched as minister to
Russia in 1858. Lucy's daughter Eugenia was born in the Russian
royal palace in 1859.
Speculation in some quarters was that Czar Alexander played more
of a role than providing the birth place. The Burtons discount
that as sniping from Lucy's rivals, and the dates between the
Pickens' first meeting the czar and the birth don't add up.
As the country moved toward Civil War, Pickens, once seen as a
potential presidential candidate, returned to become South
Carolina's governor. He led the state's secession and demanded
the surrender of federal forts in Charleston Harbor.
Meanwhile, Lucy Pickens was the "uncrowned queen of the
Confederate South," an extravagant and flirtatious hostess and a
confidante to many Southern politicians, according to the
Burtons.
She appeared on the Confederate $100 bill – they were called
Lucys – and sponsored a Holcombe Legion in the South's Army,
perhaps paid for with jewels received from Czar Alexander.

UI expert finds novel written by a Southern belle
N-G photo by Vanda Bidwell University of Illinois history and
sociology Professor Vernon Burton and his wife, Georganne, talk
about the 'The Free Flag of Cuba' last month at their home in
Urbana."

Notes

III. Thomas Colston Kinney((6)), b. near Staunton, April 27,
1841; d. Staunton, July 28, 1863. He was Assistant Engineer on
Gen'l Jackson's staff, and died as a result of an exposure on
the retreat from Gettysburg and was interred in "Thorn Rose"
cemetery, Staunton.